Whisper

     

      Whisper, by Stacey Campbell, is the second in the Lakeview series. While the novel can stand alone, I do recommend getting the back story from Hush. I really enjoyed Whisper, so much in fact that I'm halfway through the third book, Scream. Stay tuned for that review soon!
      Whisper centers around a boarding school in Canada that ranges from 8-12th graders. One of those students is Halle, whom this novel focuses on. Her older sister, Blakely, is the center of the first novel Hush. Halle is super excited to attend Lakeview, where her sister attended for five years. One of her sister's best friends, Leigh, is a year 12 at the school and takes Halle under her wing. The premise of this novel is about a ghost, Elsie, who was the school's founders daughter. Halle becomes wrapped up in this when she discovers Elsie's journal under a floorboard when volunteering to clean their old apartment. Elsie starts to overtake Halle's life, giving her nightmares and appearing to be moving things around when Halle isn't there. Halle learns through the journal that Elsie hid the school's flag and crest shortly before she died, and Halle is on a mission to find these items to set Elsie's spirit free.
      Meanwhile, we learn about Leigh and her troubled past with a boy in her grade, Calum. The two used to date, but after a nasty mysterious breakup, the two hate each other. Unfortunately, Leigh's best friend at school is going out with Calum's best friend and the two are forced to be civil with one another. But the chemistry between them still runs hot and the long school take of someone from each class eventually getting married has the talk around campus.
      In this second novel in the Lakeview series, relationships develop and a ghost is chased while attending boarding school. Halle is the sister of a princess in Europe, trying to forge her own story at Lakeview. Between dodging Missy the bully and falling for her roommate's twin brother, this novel is filled with ups and downs that can excite any reader. I'm not normally one for a romance novel, but this doesn't read as another teen romance flick.

Rosie Rinkstar

      Rosie Rinkstar, by Janet Rosina West, was a short sweet read that I finished quickly. The novel did take me a bit to get into, but I think that was in part due to all the British words thrown in that I'm not familiar with. Also, this book did read younger than YA to me, which was probably why I got through it as fast as I did.
      Anyways...this novel revolves around the life of Rosie, who is an aspiring ice skater. She lives at home with her mother and annoying little sister Bernice. She is very close to her Nan who lives nearby, and plays a special role in this book. Rosie hasn't been skating long, but is good at what she does, as evidenced in the opening of the book when she has "tests" for her skating. We learn throughout the novel that Rosie and her family don't have a lot of money, and Rosie is very aware of how much skating costs, as well as how much gymnastics costs, which her little sister is a part of. Bernice, her little sister, seems to always get her way, and when she needs more advanced classes she gets them. This hurts Rosie, who is forced to say goodbye to ballet classes due to an increased cost, and may soon be out of a ride to the skating rink.
      Rosie's best friend Sergio is also a skater at the rink, and his father is the best coach at the rink. After the confident rich Lulu confronts them for help with a fellow skater, The Princess, they all come together along with the scary new guy in class, Solomon. The unlikely five bond together and work towards helping The Princess, which leads to Sol and Lulu dating and Sergio and Rosie being able to skate together as pairs.
      This short, sweet novel all works out to a happy ending, but not without a few twists and turns along the way. Rosie is easy to connect to for me, as I once shared the same passion for a different sport and have a young annoying sibling as well.

Dancing Through It

 
      I certainly seem to be on a roll with memoirs. This memoir, Dancing Through It by Jenifer Ringer was right up my alley. It is about life as a professional dancer, life as a Christian gaining and losing and regaining her faith and touches on Ringer's struggles with eating disorders as well. I've always been fascinated with dancers, I was a gymnast and found that they were both so similar and so different than myself. Ringer was just 16 years old when she became a professional dancer in New York, and worked her way up the ranks to principal dancer; but she had a emotional and physical roller coaster on her journey there. Ringer even found herself cut from the company at one point when her eating disorder was out of control, and it took the man she would eventually marry and finding Christ again to obtain control over her eating disorder and return to life as a professional dancer. This memoir is filled with emotions ranging from euphoria to despair as Jenifer matures and becomes an adult. I really enjoyed the glimpse into the dance world that Ringer offered, and was done with this book in under a day.
      Fleeting at times, the memoir does skip around some to seemingly unconnected events of Ringer's life. She goes from talking about her favorite dances in exquisite detail to talking about finding Christ which enabled her to recover from two opposite eating disorders. Once I accepted that this was Ringer's voice though, I enjoyed following around her thoughts on paper - it is her story, and this was how she knew best to share it.
      At the end of the memoir, we find Ringer happily married, with two children and still a professional dancer at the age of 40. I certainly didn't know there were professional dancers at the age of 40 - my gymnastics career was half of hers!
     All in all, I really enjoyed this memoir, and found myself pretending to be a ballerina in my room late at night. This memoir covers the good and the bad of the dancing world, and is rich in its writing.

Friday Never Leaving

I admit - this novel took me a long time to get through. But once I hit the second half a month into the book, I couldn't put it down and finished it at four in the morning, putting it down only to eat dinner and get ready for bed. This novel made me feel. It felt like I was one of the crew, one of the lost kids in the novel who were fighting for their survival, living together as a dysfunctional family. I smiled, I laughed and I cried ugly tears. Friday Brown just recently lost her mother to cancer, her father having never been a part of her life. She is sent to live with her cranky old grandfather, and leaves almost instantly, determined to keep the nomadic lifestyle she had with her mom, and find her dad. But her plan goes astray when another teenager, Silence, finds her at the train station and whisks her away. Here begins Friday's journey with a hodgepodge of other teenagers living on their own. Eventually the novel brings the crew to an abandoned city in the middle of nowhere where the book really picks up. Knowing the background that the author brought in during the first half of the novel, we see the true colors of most of the characters during the second half of the novel when things really get going. But no spoilers here, just a reminder to keep with this book through the beginning, it's worth it to get to the good stuff. While the very end confused me a bit, and I feel I might have missed something with taking so long to read this novel, I have no qualms against rereading Friday Never Leaving to put all the pieces together. I can't say that about very many novels I've read in my lifetime.

The Body Tourist

      Wow. I finished The Body Tourist a good 24 hours ago, and my mind can't let go of this book. I've been trying to figure out how to put into words how amazing the memoir is, but my words will never do Shavin's own words justice. Shavin eloquently details her life, beginning when she is a young adult and getting her first "real" job in a halfway house for drug and alcohol addicts. She is young and naive, and thinks that she can hide her half-ass recovery from everyone. Hospitalized years ago for Anorexia Nervosa, Shavin will continue to struggle with this disease throughout the book. As you relive her relationships, trials and growth, you will see that her Anorexia will always be there, following her like a black cloud. As you read, you will notice that Shavin is able to look back on those years, and see that her relationship and housing choices were a direct reflection of how she thought about herself. You will see that Anorexia is not just about food and the body, it's about control. Shavin lets you see her fall down, and pick herself up again. Shavin also lets you see how she grows from a naive counselor at a halfway house, to a graduate student for Psychology, to a new professional working with clients she never thought she wanted to work with, to finally realize her calling as an artist.
      This memoir offers an important window into someone suffering from an eating disorder, and how is permeates their entire life, not just their thoughts surrounding food and weight. But Shavin doesn't let the novel be ONLY about her eating disorder, it is about her life, which is more than Anorexia.

Alex: The Life of a Child

      Alex Deford was an incredible little girl who passed away at the tender age of 8 due to Cystic Fibrosis. Her father wrote this memoir in memory of his daughter and it is both touching and memorable. I have to admit, at times I SOBBED while reading this incredible story. Alex's father, Frank, writes with such emotion and detail that it is easy to visualize Alex in the flesh. You can feel her pain she endures from daily treatments to help her breathe better, and you can feel the joy she exudes to everyone she is around. You can feel the despair Alex has as she is dying; as she is forced to spend more time in the hospital. You can feel the fear that Alex has of dying in the hospital, and you can feel the loss when Alex's dad recalls her final days. I would recommend this book to anyone, it's a must read. It shows just how far medicine has come in the past 30 years, and the grim outlook children with CF had 30 years ago. Alex touched so many people, and Alex's father included notes from her classmates and adult friends she made during her short 8 years on this planet. Frank tells a story of Alex that displays her as wise beyond her years. She rarely complained, cared for others and was a bright star during her time on this planet. This memoir also gives you a glimpse into how Alex's parents handled her disease and ultimate death.
      This novel makes you feel. It's a touching book that you won't forget anytime soon. Go out and read this memoir ASAP!
     

My Entrance to the Blogworld

Hi!

My name is Brittany and I'm a 22 year old young adult living in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago. Born and raised in Southern California, I'm still a newbie to the Chicagoland area. After graduating from UCSD in June 2014, I moved to the midwest to begin grad school at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I'm also a barista at Starbucks, where I've been for almost two years.

More about me...I love to travel, I love to learn, I love adventure and activities that get my adrenaline rushing. I enjoy coffee, my mom's pancakes on Sunday mornings, and swimming with manatees in Cozumel.

In my free time I read. I read books. A lot of books. However, with past medical conditions that have affected my memory, I don't always remember books after I read them. But I still love to read. So that puts me here, at this new blog. A little corner of the blogworld to call my own, where I can read books and review them. I've been blessed to be able to review ARCs of books before they're published, so some of the reviews of books I post here will be ARC reviews. I'm really excited for those. Books that appeal to me include cooking/baking books related to the vegan and gluten-free world, YA novels, memoirs, new adult, psychology focused books and just popular fiction.

Obligatory favorite "adult" author: Jodi Picoult
Obligatory favorite "YA" author: Scott Westerfeld

Thanks for stopping by,

Brittany